(Wines&Vines) - Economist Mike Veseth opened the general session of the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium on a very positive note, telling the audience of several hundred that despite challenges including a severe labor shortage and increasingly fierce competition from imports and within the United States, “The state of the wine industry is strong. It is moving forward from strength to strength.”

Veseth said that in 2016, the major concern was whether the economy would hold together, and it did. In 2017 the question seemed to be whether the politics would hold together, but, “The real story of 2017 was more than politics, more than economics, it was Mother Nature.” He noted how bad weather and fires in Europe had helped to bring world wine production to its lowest level in at least 18 years, and that California also suffered more than its usual share of fires and severe weather events.